Lawson: PP2 Inspired by Chuck Csuri
Posted: October 24, 2023 Filed under: Nico Lawson, Pressure Project 2 | Tags: Chuck Csuri, Isadora, Pressure Project Leave a comment »My second pressure project is inspired by the two Chuck Csuri works below: Lines in Space (1996) and Sign Curve Man (1967). I love the way that each work takes the human form and abstract it, making it appear that the figures melt, warp, and fray into geometric shapes and rich, playful colors.
For my project, I wanted to allow the audience a chance to imitate Csuri’s digital, humanoid images in a real time self-portrait. I also wanted to build my project around the environmental factors of an art gallery – limited space in front of each art work, a mobile audience with split attention, and ambient noise. In addition to the patch responding to the movement of the audience, I wanted to introduce my interpretation of Chuck Csuri’s work in layers that progressively built into the final composite image. You can see a demonstration of the Isadora self-portrait below.
To draw the audience’s attention to the portrait, I built a webcam motion sensor that would trigger the first scene when a person’s movement was detected in the range of the camera. I built the motion sensor using a chain of a video-in watcher, the difference actor, a calculate brightness actor, the comparator to trigger a jump scene actor. If the brightness of the webcam was determined to be greater than 0.6, the jump scene actor was triggered. So that the jump actor would only be triggered once, I used a gate actor and trigger value actor to stop more than one trigger from reaching the jump actor.
Once the patch had detected a person in the range of the webcam, the remainder of the patch ran automatically using chains of enter scene triggers, trigger delays, and jump scene actors.
To imitate the colored banding of Csuri’s work, I filtered the image of the web came through a difference actor set to color mode. The difference actor was connected to a colorizer actor. In order to create the fluctuating colors of the banding, I connected a series of envelope generators to the colorizer that raised and lowered the saturation of hues on the camera over time.
In the next scene I introduced the sense of melting that I experienced in Csuri’s work by adding a motion blur actor to my chain. At the same time, I attached a soud level watcher to the threshold of the difference actor to manipulate it’s sensitivity to movement. This way the patch is now subtlely responsive to the noise level of the gallery setting. If the gallery is noisy, the image will appear brighter because it will require less movement to be visible. This visibility will then fluctuate with the noise levels in the gallery.
In the next scene I introduced the warping and manipulation I observe in Csuri’s work. I wanted to play with the ways that Csuri turns real forms into abstract representations. To do this, I introduced a kaleidoscope actor to my chain of logic.
My final play scene is a wild card. In this scene, I connected the sound level watcher to the facet element of the kaleidoscope actor. Instead of the clarity of the image being dependent on the noise level of the gallery, the abstraction or warping of the image would be determined by the noise levels. I consider this scene to be a wild card because it’s effectiveness is dependent on the audience realizing that their talking or silence impacts their experience.
The patch ends by showing the audience my inspiration images and then resetting.
In thinking about improving this patch for Pressure Project 3, I want to consider the balance of instructions and discoverability and how to draw in and hold an audience member’s attention. I am unsure as to whether my project is “obvious” enough for an audience member to figure out what is happening without instructions but inviting enough to convince the audience member to stay and try to figure it out. I also know that I need to calibrate the length of my black out scenes and inspiration image scenes to make sure that audience members are drawn to my installation, but also don’t stay so long that they discourage another audience member from participating in the experience.
Reflection on PP3
Posted: October 24, 2023 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »For PP3, I focused more on “interactive-ness” and built a very simple structure which viewers can feel how a projection interacting with them easily.
In PP2, I made a big spiral shape in a monitor in which colors interacting viewers’ motion run through. While I liked it, I felt that a huge static spiral made a sort of a psychological barrier against viewers just like a big abstract painting standing in front of them.
So, for this project, I stepped back to my original inspiration from Charles Csuri’s Hummingbird—joy of seeing transition of shape through digital computation on a monitor—and just put a single transforming shape.
Changes of form and color is the same feature as my PP2 idea, but I also added a sound interactive (alpha value changes along with sound) to make it more playful.
As my interest is building the interactive relationship between an object and viewers, working with a webcam through PP2 & 3, and also watching everyone’s joyful projects, were really meaningful for me.
PP3: Etch-a-Sketch Iterated
Posted: October 23, 2023 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »For pressure project 3, I used my pressure project 2 patch as a starting point and both added and updated scenes to make them work more intuitively when users interact with them. From the PP2 performance, there were certain errors within the original patch that would cause scenes to skip through before the user had prompted them to change.
Above is a screenshot of part of my “split screen” scene patch. I added most of this part of the patch for PP3 to ensure that the scene only jumped ahead after the user stayed still for around 2 seconds after the text had appeared to explain that as the way to move forward. I added the gate and enter scene values specifically to keep the triggers from enabling.
Below is a screenshot of Csuri’s work I used as inspiration. I wanted to encourage the user to create and draw live, like in some of Csuri’s pieces. This piece specifically relates to the final scene in my project, the “etch-a-sketch,” in which the user draws and is able to create a canvas similar to this one:
Above is Csuri’s piece, and below is an example of my etch-a-sketch after some movement.
I also added music to this version, as I thought that might encourage movement from the user. I used the activate scene actor to activate the music in its separate scene at the end of the sequence. This also inspired a scene early on in which the user interaction doesn’t trigger movement on the screen, rather it’s the music that controls it. Below is a screenshot of the patch containing this scene.
I enjoyed getting to iterate on a past project, especially because I enjoyed the point I got to when working on PP2. I found the performance interesting as well, as the rest of the class already knew what to expect in a way. I think I learned more from the performance of PP2, but I still enjoyed getting to show the class how I implemented and took into account their feedback and interaction with the patch. Below is a .zip file of my entire PP3 patch:
PP3: Living and Alive!
Posted: October 19, 2023 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »Inspired by Csuri’s use of feedback, duplication and circular repetition, as well as the ‘Nervous Tick’ animation, I continue developing the idea of living typography with an added sound-reactive element.
In addition to the motion sensor in the first scene, there is a sound trigger that leads us into the next scene. This was an idea I had for the first iteration but could not achieve without Alex’s help (thanks Alex!) So, the motion sensor triggers a text that says ‘Clap Clap Clap for me!’ which tells the audience to make sound, which in turn triggers the next scene to enter.
The sound element was an exciting new element to work with. Unlike the motion sensor, a clap is very energetic. Suddenly, the room was filled with life, which fueled the appetite of the creature. In scene 2, claps (or the sound-reactive element) altered the size of the creature, allowing it to emerge from the depths each time sound was detected. After watching it with the class, I had hoped I re-exported the video clip to be on black background and added a fade to the movement so that there was an overlapping effect between each clap and the rectangular edges wasn’t so clear.
In the next scene, I introduced a new sound-reactive only animation. Built using heavy feedback, I wanted to create a portal that also activated based on claps or sound engagements from the audience.
Programming-wise, the new elements in this scene includes an audio-reactive shapes actor and double feedback through ‘Get Stage Image’ using text. I’m not sure exactly how I created this look, so there was a lot of experimenting going on. In this scene, I felt visually creative for the first time using Isadora and would like to explore the combination of these actors further.
To finish off, we use ‘come closer’ through audio detection to return to ‘See you in your dreams’ which goes back to motion detection. Overall, I’m very satisfied by all the rabbit holes I managed to hop into with this project. It felt like a cohesive piece and each experiment was really fun and exciting!
PP2: Living Typography
Posted: October 19, 2023 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »The inspiration for this project was ‘Nervous Tick,’ an animation by Chuck Csuri. I loved the way the shapes felt ‘alive’ in their movements, almost reacting to those watching them. I also wanted to give the computer presence a voice through the use of typography. The interaction between image and viewer was my impetus for creating this work.
Everything in this first iteration is motion triggered and set off through time delay. Using a webcam, filtered through the ‘Difference’ and then ‘Eyes++’ actor, the motion sensor in it detects movement, which sends triggers for text to appear. One motion sensor actor (above) has a longer delay time and allows for a smoother interaction from human movement to text output. The second motion sensor is set up to be quick and jittery. I did this to give emotion to the creature.
Text in the first scene includes ‘Hey There!’, ‘I’m in here!’, ‘It’s dark..’, ‘Let me out!’
At first, the viewer is not sure whether the character is innocent. From audience reaction, I gathered people thought the creature was the victim. It is revealed in the next scene that it is an unpleasant virus looking thing that has been unleashed and will ‘see you in your dreams.’
A new element in this project is the use of feedback through the ‘Get Stage Image’ Actor plugged into Projector. It creates a melting effect similar to datamosh that really gave it an organic feel.
Pressure Project 1
Posted: October 17, 2023 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »In this pressure project, I was very much so tinkering with the software, trying to figure on what to plug where.
In Scene One, I was also experimenting with the various sliders the shape actor, combining them with the envelop, wave and pulse generators to create what I deem an interesting animation. I also did some tuning of frequency, amplitude and phase of curves for various generators so as to create an orbital effect in the moving agents. I was mindful to include user actors, to create independent objects on the stage. These user actors make sense for me from the perspective of object oriented programming.
In Scene two, I imported a video I made and experimented with the kaleidoscope actor.
Overall, I was not totally satisfied with this project and what it achieved, but I am ok to treat it more like a “study” piece.
Here’s my patch for sharing:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NSRfCIi78JRKkM_2lV559OdPd70sWCkj/view?usp=sharing
Pressure Project 2
Posted: October 17, 2023 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »In this project, I was inspired by Charles Csuri’s line work that appears in his work swan lake piece and his humming bird piece.
I experimented with various actors to manipulate the webcam image, such as difference, gaussian blur, shimmer, in order to impact how the eyes ++ actor was responding to the live capture. I wanted more simultaneous capturing of multiple moving objects, and i found the reflector actor to serve my intended purpose well. The numbers generated by the eyes ++ actors were fed into scale, position etc of the moving elements.
As for the moving visual elements, I created simple line drawings using photoshop, and exported them as PNGs with transparent backrgounds. I managed to device a way to call various images into the background using the numbers from the eyes ++ actor. See screenshot below. I will be using this more.
In the work, I also experimented with the 3D Particle generator, but it was not very successful. There were just too many sliders to account for, and after tinkering with it for 2-3 hours, it feels like I only have a sense of what 20% of them do. I also managed to work in the get stage image actor and capture stage to image actor, which I will be experimenting more for cycle 1 of my project.
Here’s my patch to share if you are interested.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/18Tq5N5q7md8nW2IadXUaUh_7EnQI9PIo/view?usp=sharing
Pressure Project 2
Posted: October 16, 2023 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »Pressure Project 2 had to be completed in 8 hours, had to use the Video In Watcher, had to be interactive, and had to be inspired by Chuck Csuri. I was inspired the colors in this piece and wanted to use them in some way in my work. One of the biggest problems I ran into throughout this Pressure Project was keeping Isadora from crashing. I found that just starting live capture with my webcam would increase the load of Isadora by 30% or more, so I decided to use it in only one part of my project rather than the whole thing in an attempt to keep the load down. I also reduced the webcam resolution quite a bit and this helped to keep Isadora and my computer from crashing.
My project begins with a blank screen that says “Open”, with the ‘O’ in pink and the rest of the word in white.
I used three Text Draw actors in this scene; one for the ‘O’, one for ‘pen’ placed beside the ‘O’ to look like one word, and the third for the hint that is displayed after 20 seconds. To create the timer, I used the Enter Scene Trigger, Trigger Delay, and Timed Trigger actors. I also used a keyboard watcher to trigger the next scene when the letter ‘o’ is pressed.
The second scene is an eye shape made of concentric circles and a glowing pink center. I actually started with this scene first, so I started playing with the Video In Watcher here.
The biggest challenge in this scene was getting a delay between each eye blink so that the next scene doesn’t trigger too quickly. To do this, I used an Inside Range actor within a sequence connected to the Video In Watcher with a higher minimum value and a small range, then a Trigger Delay actor off of the Inside Range Actor.
Because I wanted the scene to change after so many eye blinks, I used a Counter and an Inside Range actor to count the number of blinks (movement inputs from the Video In Watcher), then after x blinks (I used 10 but this can be changed for a longer experience), the Inside Range actor will trigger an Activate Scene actor to move to the next scene.
The third scene is a pink sphere on a gold and green/blue background. This one was mostly a result of playing around with layering Shapes actors to see if I could give the illusion of a 3D object. This scene is not interactive, mostly because I couldn’t decide on an input method or how I wanted it to be interacted with.
My biggest obstacles in this scene were just getting each circle in the right place and finding the right actor for the background gradient, and these took a lot of time to do but were relatively easy overall. Because this scene does not have any interactive components, I used a Wave Generator actor to get the circle to spin. As of now, this scene does not end.
PP2: Etch-a-Sketch
Posted: October 9, 2023 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »For Pressure Project 2, I created a sequential interactive experience that ends in a “human etch-a-sketch.”
The Project
For the earlier scenes, I took inspiration from Charles Csuri’s “Swan Lake” piece. I isolated the user’s outline and applied different effects to it. Here are screencaps of my patches for some of these scenes:
I was also inspired by Csuri’s “Sine Curve Man” and hummingbird drawing, so I wanted to include something that had a feeling of drawing to it. I stumbled upon the Live Drawing actor in Isadora, and figured out how to attach it to a user and have it draw along with their movement. Patch below:
The Eyes++ actor connects the position of the blob’s centroid to the position of the “cursor” in the Live Drawing actor. In order to erase, I connected a Keyboard Watcher to the Explode actor, so the drawing would seemingly erase into small particles whenever the user pressed the ‘c’ key.
As soon as I made this, I got the feeling it was like an etch-a-sketch, a kid’s toy where the user “draws” with two knobs and shakes the board to erase it. This vision gave me a much clearer image of my project as a whole, as I now saw it as a celebration of play and youthfulness. I spent a long time testing the etch-a-sketch scene to make sure the tracking was smooth enough to use intuitively. However, after testing for a long time, I realized I should include instructions as this would be shown both in class and in a gallery-style open house.
Knowing the details of the performance context gave me a new perspective with which to instruct the user. I decided to make them quick and to the point, just instructing them to press certain keyboard buttons to prompt an erase, for instance. I also set a user-controlled loop on the entire project, so it doesn’t require extra setup if a new user wants to start the experience over for themselves.
The Performance
I was very pleased with the outcome of this performance, but still glad we get a chance to iterate on it in preparation for the open house; there were many moments in which I realized new possibilities for “bugs” in the program when watching others test it. When creating the project, I was so used to testing it myself that there were certain user-interaction possibilities I overlooked. For instance, one of the scene changes triggers based on the speed of the user’s movement. After about five seconds, the program prompts them to wave quickly, which should trigger the next scene. However, this scene got skipped in the first run in class because Arvcuken (who did a great job of demonstrating the program) entered the scene while moving.
It was fascinating to see the class’ reactions to the project, especially the interaction aspect. I had a great time watching Arvcuken interact with the program; it gave a lot of new insight as to how someone new to the patch would experience it.
Hearing feedback was especially helpful. I appreciated CG’s comment on the aesthetic of the colors I used. Most times colors were involved, I had the Colorizer actor on three different Wave Generators: one for red, blue, and green respectively. This changed the colors somewhat randomly throughout the scenes. I added this aspect after I discovered the playfulness of the entire piece. The program encouraged discovery through movement, which is essential to childhood. I wanted to bring up those feelings of playfulness and discovery in the user by inserting bright colors to the scenes.
I also appreciated Amy’s comment about the playfulness of the etch-a-sketch scene. Her interpretation of the piece bringing up childhood memories was almost exactly my intention, and I was overjoyed that it actually came through for someone in the experience.
Niko made a good point about the instructions being helpful as a framing device from an accessibility standpoint. This was a new perspective that I hadn’t considered while inputting the instructions, but I greatly valued that as feedback. I originally intended the instructions to provide context and guidance for any user, but knowing that it’s helpful for accessibility is great information to have. Having a range of users in mind while iterating is essential to the RSVP cycle, so it was a welcome reminder of audience awareness.
Overall, I valued the experience of creating and receiving feedback on this project. Seeing people actually interact and “play along” with something I create was new to me, but a very welcome experience. I definitely know how I’m going to iterate on this for PP3, and I look forward to get to work on it more after testing it with users.
Reflection on PP2
Posted: October 8, 2023 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »The final piece for this project became a spiral color transition interacting with viewers’ motion.
But originally, I started from shapes floating in a monitor along with motion. By using x, y coordinates or speeds of blobs on Eye actor, I tried to make transformations happening on a screen which are generated by a computational process; this idea came from Charles Csuri’s Hummingbird (1967).
This piece could be the final output, but I found Get Stage Image actor can multiply transforming images on screens. I make a spiral structure which creates “echoes” of image transition by spinning the projector.
It totally changed the visual of my original plan, but I was satisfied that this structure created the relationship with the “past” actions which has just done a second before; a more time-transitional motion.